thoughts on this server

[slatr]

-Configurable-HP ProLiant DL585 (PC3200) - Rack Server
HP ProLiant DL585 rack server
Two AMD® 885 Opteron? 2.6GHz/1GHz, Dual Core 1MB Processors
Two AMD® 885 Opteron? 2.6GHz/1GHz, Dual Core 1MB Processors
16GB REG PC3200 8/(2X1024)
Integrated Smart Array 5i Plus Controller with Battery Backed Write Cache
Smart Array 641 Controller with 128MB Battery Backed Write Cache (RAID)
HP 72.8GB Pluggable Ultra320 SCSI 15,000 rpm (1") Universal Hard Drive
HP 72.8GB Pluggable Ultra320 SCSI 15,000 rpm (1") Universal Hard Drive
HP 72.8GB Pluggable Ultra320 SCSI 15,000 rpm (1") Universal Hard Drive
HP 72.8GB Pluggable Ultra320 SCSI 15,000 rpm (1") Universal Hard Drive
RAID 5 drive set with online spare (requires matching 4 hard drives)
Dual Port HP NC7782 PCI-X Gbit (embedded)
Dual 870W hot pluggable power supply
1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
CD-ROM drive 24X carbon
Warranty - 3 year next business day onsite

29k or so

 

[Luckyboy1]

And it will be used specifically for?

 

[slatr]

managing a few hundred thousand unique documents and associated metadata

 

[spike spiegal]

Gonna fit that on 130gig?

 

[slatr]

nah, that will be on the SAN

 

[GrammatonJP]

That'll wipe the floor on the xeon.. i got 2 quad xeon, 2.8 and 3.0 w/ 4mb l2 cache.. they're not that fast.. my db still locks on heavy load...

I was going to replaced my xeons with the opteron but no buyers on the xeon

 

[spike spiegal]

nah, that will be on the SAN

Good, because that 5i controller is a dog.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: slatr
nah, that will be on the SAN

If this thing is basically just a SAN frontend, it should be a beast. Depending on whether it helps your application or not, and the server supports it, it might be worth adding on more memory. Although I just checked out some of the option pricing from HP... holy crap, they are charging a small fortune for their memory upgrades. 16 x 2GB Registered ECC memory for $12,000? Only about 50-75% more than you'd pay for it yourself...

If money is at all a concern, buy as little memory from them as possible and upgrade the system yourself. I might even suggest buying four Opteron 865s and upgrading it yourself to 885s if you decide you need them; they're easily tacking on a 100% profit margin above retail on those CPUs.

Of course, if this is going on a corporate budget and money is no problem, max it out!

 

[slatr]

Thanks for the good info guys.

Next steps..

1. I need to document/back up any assertion that the Opterons are superior to the Xeons.

2. Investigate memory alternatives.

 

[ND40oz]

Looks good to me. I'm running 2 Quad Xeon 3.0 8mb cache DL580s with raid 5 and a hot spare. We're in the process of getting them hooked up to a 2 gig san with an hba. I didn't see one on the specs, how are you hooking up to the san?

I would have bought opterons, but was told this was too big of a project to switch over at the time. That's why I went with the 8 mb cache xeons, we're running an app which runs on oracle on the server thats hit by 300+ users. Since then we've bought plenty of DL385s and 585s, but these were purchased last fall.

Atleast with the pricing agreement we have with HP, there is not much difference between Opteron 865s and Opteron 885s. When you drop 20-30k on a server, whats a couple hundred here and there. The DL380s with dual core 2.8 xeons were actually more expensive then DL385s with Opteron 280s the last time I got quotes. Go figure.